Transdermal devices for the delivery of biologically active agents have been used for maintaining health and therapeutically treating a wide variety of ailments. For example, analgesics, steroids, etc., have been delivered with such devices. Such transdermal devices include patches in which a biologically active agent is delivered to the body tissue passively without use of an additional energy source. Many such devices have been described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,598,122, 3,598,123, 4,379,454, 4,286,592, 4,314,557, 4,568,343, and U.S. Application No. 2003002682, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
A transdermal patch is typically a small adhesive bandage that contains the drug to be delivered. A simple type of such transdermal patches is an adhesive monolith including a drug-containing reservoir disposed on a backing. The reservoir is typically formed from a pharmaceutically acceptable pressure sensitive adhesive. In some cases, the reservoir can be formed from a non-adhesive material, the skin-contacting surface of which is provided with a thin layer of a suitable adhesive. The rate at which the drug is administered to the patient from these patches can vary due to normal person-to-person and skin site-to-skin site variations in the permeability of skin to the drug.
Sometimes patches can be multilaminate or can include a liquid reservoir layer in the patches. A drug release-rate controlling membrane can be disposed between the drug reservoir and the skin-contacting adhesive. This membrane, by decreasing the release rate of drug from the patch, serves to reduce the effects of variations in skin permeability.
Although the transdermal delivery of therapeutic agents has been the subject of intense research and development for over 30 years, only a relatively small number of drug molecules are suitable for transdermal delivery due to the fact that human skin is an excellent barrier. Various techniques have been explored to enhance the permeation of drug molecules that are not otherwise suitable for transdermal delivery. Of these techniques, chemical enhancement is the most established and is currently employed commercially. Pressure sensitive adhesives, such as acrylic adhesives, are used in most transdermal drug delivery devices as a means of providing intimate contact between the drug delivery device and the skin. The use of enhancers, especially at high concentrations, usually has a significant impact on the properties of pressure sensitive adhesives, such as cohesive strength, adhesive flow, tackiness and adhesion strength. Therefore, pressure sensitive adhesives have to be designed in a way that they can provide the needed performance in the presence of enhancer.
Many systems with adhesives and permeation enhancers have been described in the past, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,558,574; 4,554,324; 4,822,676; 5,573,778, and 6,077,527. Some discussed the use of grafting macromers to the backbone (U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,778). Some discussed cross-linking (U.S. Pat. No. 6,077,527). However, at the present, there does not seem to be systems that have high enhancer and drug tolerance and yet provides pressure sensitive adhesive property.
There continues to be a need for improved transdermal systems, especially transdermal systems that can deliver pharmaceutical agents with a high load of pharmaceutical agents and/or permeation enhancers and yet provide desirable pressure sensitive property.